


Soft Questions

by merelydovely



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Bottom Grantaire, Developing Relationship, Enjoltaire Week 2017, Insecurity, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Top Enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:04:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelydovely/pseuds/merelydovely
Summary: Grantaire is afraid to ruin something good. Enjolras is afraid he's already ruined it. Both of them are idiots who need to talk more. Specifically, they need to talk about what's up with Grantaire's dick.





	Soft Questions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Opium_du_Peuple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opium_du_Peuple/gifts).



> Written as part of **Enjoltaire Week 2017, Day 3: Soft**. I did something a little... different... with today's theme. Was going to submit it as a headcanon to [@les-amis-de-nsfw](http://les-amis-de-nsfw.tumblr.com/), but then for some reason it wanted to be a ficlet, and here we are!

Grantaire’s eyes were screwed shut and he was biting his lip, hard. Every so often his eyes would fly open on a gasp, sucking in a huge breath. Or he’d groan deep in his chest, sounding desperate, overwhelmed, and also like maybe he’d been punched in the gut. Enjolras stared at him, transfixed, soaking in the sights and sounds of him as he fucked himself back onto Enjolras’ cock.

The view hadn’t had time to get old. They’d only been having penetrative sex for a week or two at most, and it was all totally new to Enjolras. Grantaire had announced that he was happiest when he was bottoming, so Enjolras found himself slotting into the role of the top by default. And he loved it — really, he did.

There was just one problem. One _small_ problem.

Enjolras let his gaze drop from Grantaire’s face and instead let his eyes come to rest on Grantaire’s cock, which was lolling against his stomach, limp and soft. He’d lost his erection when Enjolras entered him and hadn’t gotten it back.

He _never_ got it back.

Enjolras shifted his hold on Grantaire’s quivering left leg to support it more fully, which in turn let him relinquish his hold on the right. He skimmed his freed right hand down toward the vee of Grantaire’s legs and had only just brushed his target when Grantaire’s own hand came out of nowhere to bat Enjolras away.

“Nnn… s'too… distracting,” said Grantaire by way of explanation, his words punctuated with his ragged breathing. “Just… _ahh_ , just fuck me.” He let his head fall back into the pillows with a thump and rolled his hips encouragingly.

And then he rolled them again, and again, and again until Enjolras had forgotten everything except his need to fuck deeper and harder into that irresistible tightness. He swept up Grantaire’s left leg once more and curled forward, bending Grantaire nearly in half so that their mouths could touch in an almost-kiss.

It was only later, after he’d come, that his brain was back online enough to revisit the same old worry yet again: was Grantaire actually enjoying this as much as he normally would with a more experienced partner? Or was he just gritting his teeth through it for Enjolras’ sake?

Despite what all their friends seemed to think, Grantaire had never had a penchant for putting Enjolras on a pedestal. Quite the contrary, in fact — he saw Enjolras as more human and fallible than most, and seemed to find him all the more remarkable as a result. It was hardly impressive, Grantaire had told Enjolras once, for a distant golden god to hold unerringly to lofty ideals. “What beggars my imagination,” he’d said, “is that it’s you, you with all your human fears and failings, _you_ who chooses to give so much of yourself, to work so hard for a world you can’t yet see. To look at this… this _mess_ , and see so much potential, so much beauty? For a god it would be easy. For someone who’s just as deep in the shit as the rest of us, it’s… well. You’re really something, Enjolras.”

Incidentally, this speech had immediately preceded the first time Enjolras had kissed him.

Since then, Enjolras had noticed Grantaire pinching himself on at least three occasions. Most of the time he seemed normal, if a little more upbeat, but it was like every once in a while he’d take stock of his situation and go all misty-eyed. He still startled badly when Enjolras sat down next to him in mixed company.

Even to Enjolras, it was obvious: Grantaire could hardly believe they were together. And, worryingly, he seemed willing to put up with quite a lot to make sure they stayed that way.

For example, after the first time he’d slept over at Enjolras’ apartment, Enjolras had cooked scrambled eggs for them both. He liked to sprinkle dill on his own eggs, and without thinking he did the same to Grantaire’s. Grantaire ate them with a smile. Cleaned his plate. Asked for more. It didn’t even enter into Enjolras’ mind that the man might not like dill. Only a chance mention during a discussion of what Joly should cook for a dinner party clued Enjolras in to the fact that Grantaire disliked dill. Hated it with a passion, actually. And at that point Enjolras had been making Grantaire scrambled eggs — with dill — for a solid three weeks.

That in combination with a few other incidents had driven the point home. The first week they were together, Enjolras had asked an inessential favor of Grantaire, the kind of job Grantaire sometimes had time for but had always turned down when he was too busy. Not this time. This time Grantaire called in sick to work just to get it done. Enjolras had tried to chastise his new boyfriend, but Grantaire had laughed it off, saying he’d had a few sick days to burn, “and anyway, I like being able to do things for you. Pardon my double negative, but I like _not_ having to pretend I don’t want to make you happy.”

At the time it had seemed sweet. Exuberant. Puppy love.

But now there was this. Grantaire always stayed soft. Always! Weren’t you supposed to get hard again after a while, if you really liked it? Enjolras didn’t doubt that Grantaire loved bottoming. He just couldn’t be sure Grantaire loved bottoming _for Enjolras_ , or loved it for any other reason than that it was one more thing he was reliably capable of doing for Enjolras. 

Enjolras couldn’t quite articulate to himself why he was so afraid to just… ask. It was totally normal for first-timers to be bad at sex, of course. Feeling this way was irrational. Maybe it had something to do with not wanting to put Grantaire in the position of having to _tell_  Enjolras he was bad at sex – obviously it wasn’t something Grantaire would feel comfortable doing. Maybe he was worried Grantaire would lie to his face. Or worried that even if Grantaire told the truth, Enjolras wouldn't believe him. What if Enjolras just… got better in bed over time? Surely that would happen naturally? But what if he wasn’t just boring Grantaire – what if he was _hurting_ Grantaire?

Such was the gist of the thoughts keeping him up on this particular night. Grantaire was asleep at his side, his breathing heavy and audible, though not quite loud enough to be called snoring. They weren’t living together — it was far too early for that — but already there were a few nights every week that they found themselves unwilling to part. 

Enjolras was falling hard and he knew it. With that came an intolerable vulnerability, a craven fear that made him want to hide the softest parts of himself even as he ought to be baring them.

 _I can face down riot cops,_  he thought muzzily. _How is it possible that talking about sex scares me more?_

It was his last thought before he drifted off, one hand still resting lightly on Grantaire’s curls.

***

Things came to a head the next morning.

Enjolras woke to Grantaire nuzzling his neck and Grantaire’s erection poking him through his pajamas. “I have something for you,” purred Grantaire, nudging Enjolras’ hip suggestively.

“Are you sure it’s for me?” said Enjolras through a yawn. “And not just morning wood?”

“You impugn my honor, sir!” said Grantaire, affecting a hoity-toity accent. He reverted to his normal voice and said, “Of course I’m hard for you.”

Enjolras stiffened in his arms.

Grantaire pulled back slowly, propping himself up on one elbow. “Enjolras?”

Enjolras didn’t say anything, and didn’t say anything, and didn’t say anything. Then he burst out, “But you don’t _stay_ hard for me!”

“Babe?” said Grantaire. His voice was full of question marks.

Enjolras flopped onto his back, maintaining careful eye contact with the ceiling. “I mean when, when we’re fucking,” he said, closing his eyes with a sigh. “You’re always. You know. Soft. And you won’t let me touch you there. And you screw up your face like you’re in pain and you bite your lip like you’re trying not to make noise and I’m really worried that I’m a, a terrible top and if you're afraid to tell me that means I’m a bad boyfriend and I just—” He stopped. There were two warm hands on either side of his face. He opened his eyes to see Grantaire’s worried grey ones coming swiftly closer, so he closed his own again for the oncoming kiss.

Grantaire kissed him until he was calm, just lightly enough to avoid the taste of their morning breath. “You beautiful idiot,” he muttered into Enjolras’ hairline, before sitting up and swinging a leg over Enjolras to straddle him. “Honestly? This is what you get for blowing up the learning curve. Two fumbling false starts, one and a half mediocre fucks, and then BAM, you’re so good at fucking me I keep forgetting you’ve never done this with anyone else.”

“What?” said Enjolras, jerking upwards. “Wait, really?!”

Grantaire covered his face with his hands. “Yes, really,” he said. He sounded… embarrassed?

Enjolras gently peeled Grantaire’s hands away, intertwining their fingers. “Well go on then,” he said, tilting their foreheads together. “Tell me what I’ve been missing.”

“Oh god,” said Grantaire, “I deserve this, don’t I? Okay, um. First I guess I should say that it’s totally normal to not get hard when you’re bottoming. Varies from person to person. For me, I can if I try, but it’s two different kinds of pleasure for me and they kind of… go in different directions, I guess. So it’s distracting.”

Enjolras let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “And?”

Grantaire was not normally much of a blusher, but right now there was an undeniable, and very adorable, pink to his cheeks.

“Um. So like. You know how you can kind of modulate your reactions during sex? Not, you know, _fake_ them or anything, but you can choose to be, uh, let’s say, a little performative?”

Enjolras nodded seriously like this was familiar. It had never occurred to him to “modulate” his sex noises, but then, he didn’t seem to make very many.

“Yeah. And the less you’re enjoying yourself, the easier it is to control your reactions, right? Because you’ve got more available brainpower. And the corollary is that if you’re _really_ enjoying yourself, you have, uh. _No_ control over what noises you make. So if, say, hypothetically, you knew that you made really embarrassingly pathetic whiny noises when you were too far gone…”

Oh. OH. “Then you might try to stop yourself from making any noises at all!” finished Enjolras. He grinned rather wickedly at Grantaire. “Well _that’s_ going to have to stop,” he announced. He planted one hand on Grantaire’s hip and began curling the other protectively around his neck.

“What?” Grantaire spluttered. “No, wait!“ But he was laughing breathlessly as Enjolras flipped them over.

Enjolras, for his part, was already reaching for a condom and lube. "This time I want to hear _all_ your noises," he said in his most authoritative tone. Grantaire shivered beneath him. "And _I'll_ be the judge of how embarrassing they are."

Grantaire didn't make much noise while Enjolras was fingering him open — not more than usual, anyway — nor did he utter anything but a deeply satisfied sigh upon being entered. His erection had wilted away, but this time Enjolras focused on his face. "I'd really like it if you looked at me more," he admitted as he bottomed out.

"I'll try," said Grantaire. He sounded unsure. "I mean, it's not that I don't want to. I just—you are so _intense_. And stunning. And dazzling and radiant and—" He gasped at the sharpness of Enjolras' first thrust. "Ohhfuck. _Resplendent._ "

Enjolras thrust into him again. "Quit it with the purple prose," said Enjolras, adjusting his hold on Grantaire's hips and picking up his pace. "Are you being fucked by me, or by the sun?"

"Sometimes—I'm honestly—not, _ahh_ , not sure," quipped Grantaire.

He curled up toward Enjolras for a kiss, and when his abs flexed Enjolras felt the clench. " _Fuck._ Okay, no more jokes, let's see what it takes to make you get loud."

He'd thought fucking Grantaire was good, before, but now he could finally trust himself — trust _Grantaire_ — and the difference was night and day. Like learning a foreign language from a native speaker instead of a textbook. Every little hitch of breath, every pant for air that went just that little bit deeper, had been confirmed as signs he was doing things right, and he set about reading those signs with renewed zeal.

It wasn't long at all until Grantaire started to moan, and the moaning quickly turned to whining. It made Grantaire, who was just shy of 6'1 and something like 220 pounds, sound like a skinny little twink. No wonder he'd believed it was embarrassing.

But Enjolras _loved it_.

Grantaire kept trying to button his lip, whether out of continued nervousness or just out of habit, Enjolras didn't know. But every time he did it, Enjolras smacked him hard on the meaty underside of his thigh. And every time, his mouth would fall open on a gasp, and he'd be back to full volume. A delicious cycle.

"You're never allowed to stay quiet when we fuck ever again," Enjolras panted into Grantaire's mouth, having once again bent him in half. "Never, ever, ever."

"Enjolras," whined Grantaire. "Enjolras—not even if we, _ohh_. Not even if—at the Musain again?" His eyes were unfocused, distant, like he was remembering it.

"Especially not then," said Enjolras fiercely. "I'm going to fuck you—in the back room—until _everyone_ —hears," and something about that thought, the mental picture of Grantaire whimpering, wanton and shameless, for him, so that all their friends could hear — that did it. Two more thrusts with that image in his mind's eye and he was coming, hard.

***

The afterglow felt like an eternity, but it was probably only a minute or so later that he finally got it together enough to extricate himself from Grantaire, ditch the condom, and snuggle back into the warmth and safety provided by the crook of his boyfriend's neck.

"So... good talk?" said Grantaire into the empty space above Enjolras' head.

Enjolras nodded fervently. Or rather, he intended to nod fervently, but only managed a sleepy sort of headwiggle.

"Yeah," said Grantaire, with feeling. "Good talk."

They lay there in contented silence for a while, breathing each other in. Gradually, Enjolras became aware of something hard poking him in the stomach.

Grantaire squeezed his shoulder. "Okay, time for another hard question," he said. "Who's up for round two?"

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Enjoltaire Week!
> 
> Reference material:
> 
>   * The Ask a Gay Man forum over at the LPSG had a thread on [staying hard while bottoming](https://www.lpsg.com/threads/staying-hard-while-bottoming.383949/) during anal sex.
> 

> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated to the heavens and back! And I'm always grateful for anyone who bothers to point out typos or other errors. Rebloggable post for this fic is available over at my NSFW les mis sideblog, [@les-amis-de-nsfw](https://les-amis-de-nsfw.tumblr.com/post/162113483717/soft-questions-25k-words-grantaire-is-afraid-to). Or come yell about the Brick with me over at [my main!](http://starfieldcanvas.tumblr.com)  
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧


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